mRNA

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929139311001466

The influx of carbon sources and energy into the grossly oligotrophic soil system is a major driving force
in biogeochemical cycles. Differences in these inputs due to the ground-covering plants and agriculture
practices, likely influence the activity of the microbial communities. Previously, we have shown that
the extent and degree of active bacterial diversity in soils are clearly affected by the type of management. In the present study we have evaluated the effects of different soil managements (tilled vineyard,

Yu, R., M. J. Kampschreur, et al. "Mechanisms and Specific Directionality of Autotrophic Nitrous Oxide and Nitric Oxide Generation during Transient Anoxia." Environmental Science & Technology 44(4): 1313-1319.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es902794a

Gene transcription, nirK

Additional papers with mRNA extraction techniques, including
* Hurt&Tiedje.etal_2001: CTAB extraction, simultaneous extraction of DNA & RNA for transcription analysis
* McGrath.etal_2008: Specifically processed for mRNA using MoBio (phenol-chloroform) extraction; pre-processing in field
* Poretsky.etal_2005: mRNA extraction environmental samples

DNA extraction comparison: Evaluates different methods for DNA extraction in different soils

The following papers both used Qiagen reagents to extract mRNA from soil samples. One was unsuccessful in amplifying, perhaps because soils were stored at -20.